Wedding Bells

It’s official! My oldest son, David, has gotten married!

He and Candy have been together for awhile now and have a wonderful son (Ashton) and they have finally gotten married. It was such a beautiful wedding! My youngest son, Chris, was a groomsman. It was so nice to see my sons dressed up in tuxes. Course I don’t think they would agree to that but oh well. I took loads of pictures.

My ex and his wife were there and everything went off perfectly! They took off for Jamaica last Mon and are due back Sun so it will be nice to see how the honeymoon went. Sigh! Weddings are so wonderful!

Blue Christmas

This year I decided to have a blue Christmas. No, not because I was depressed but I just love the color blue! I wanted a simply decorated tree (in blue and silver with clear lights) and simple decorations around the house (green garland with silver decorations. My hubby and son put up our blue lights on the house, the candy canes and blue stars around the front flower bed and icicle lights on the back fence.

It’s so awesome to come home after dark and see the lights on. We are the only ones in the neighborhood with blue lights. It’s so cool!

The presents this year are also simple – scarfs, cookies, handmade things. Even the toys for the grandkids are simpler this year. We decided kids liked to have more to open so we bought smaller toys, no electronics. It was actually cheaper and the toys should get a more creative side of play time.

This year has been a lot less stressful by doing this. My shopping, tree and lights were all done last week! Now I can actually sit and read a book, look at my lights and drink some great hot chocolate with an oatmeal cookie.

Hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas! See you next year!

Last Days of Summer

Looks like we are in the home stretch now. The 100′s are still here but only for a day or two and then we are looking forward to 80′s next week. Yippee!!! It’s so odd to be excited to see 80′s! We have had 89 days of over 90 degrees since June 1st. It’s been a bad summer and I for one am grateful it is coming to a close.

I’m anxious for October’s cool crisp air and glorious color. Altho the weather man tells us we may not see much of that color since it’s been so hot here. Ugh! I hear a ultra light over head – haven’t heard him in awhile. Nice! Think my dogs are anxious for cooler weather, too. We haven’t been able to get out much for our daily walks. Soon!

Abercrombie and Fitch Says No to Jersey Shore

Did you see this on the news?

Seems that Abercrombie & Fitch has offered to pay Jersey Shore money to STOP wearing its Abercrombie clothes. Really?
Abercrombie says that it’s concerned “significant damage” could be done to the company’s image by having Sorrentino seen in its clothing. A connection to “The Situation” runs counter to the brand’s “aspirational nature” the release says and may be “distressing” to core customers.

You would think they would like the publicity. Guess just not from Jersey Shore. I don’t watch Jersey Shore (not my style) but never heard of a company paying someone “not” to wear their clothes. Wow!

Gold Peak Tea

Ok, I don’t know if it’s the idea of fall coming soon but I was shopping at Target yesterday and saw something I hadn’t seen before – Gold Peak Tea (http://www.goldpeaktea.com). I love tea but hate the idea of making it all the time and we can really go through tea pretty quickly. So the idea of getting a large pitcher of tea already made just kind of appealed to me at the time so I bought the unsweetened one. I gotta tell you – that stuff is good! I was pleasantly surprised! Now I gotta go back and try the other flavors.

The one thing I’m not crazy about, tho is that their website could use some work. For a new person just finding the site and looking for more flavors it was hard to find what I wanted. First thing was going through the flash thing and waiting for it to load. 2nd is that it when I went from where to buy tab to the what’s happening tab – it froze. I had to totally get out of the website and back in. Ugh!

But otherwise I really like the tea.

Fall is Near

I know. I know. I’m rushing it, but I can just feel it! The days are getting shorter now and stores are stocking back to school clothes and I just got a note from a friend of mine who has a consignment shop – blazers are coming in. LOL! 108 degrees outside with the chance of going to 110 Wed and Thurs and I’m thinking of blazers. Ah well… I can dream, right? My vacation time in Oct is finalized and ready to go now and just anticipating my favorite season of colour and crisp cool sunny days. Sigh!

So my question for this post is – “How many of you have Fall as your favorite season and why? What is it about Fall that makes you happy?”

Tulsa Record Heat

This heat has changed my way of life. I think as I get older the heat affects me more and it’s harder to tollerate it. I always make sure I have water with me now. It’s kind of like when it snows and they tell you to make sure you have a blanket with you just in case? This is like that. Always have water with you. My husband mows and then waters the yard early in the morning now so there’s no sleeping in on weekends.

We were lucky when we called our AC folks out to check the AC unit. We have used them for over 20 years and it only took a week to schedule them to come out for a maintennace check. It had been a few years so we just wanted to make sure there were no leaks. That day one of our neighbors mentioned on Facebook that they thought their AC had a leak and wasn’t cooling the house down. Well our AC folks checked ours and we were good so they went to the neighbors. They were right – they had a leak. It was fixed and all was ok again.

The thing I keep thinking about is all the folks who don’t have AC or don’t have a good working AC. How did our ancestors handle the heat? I feel so blessed to be in a comfortable cool house. We met a young lady at a restaurant last night who told us her AC went out and it would be 2 weeks to get someone to come check it. We gave her our AC folks number.

This heat has just really done a number on us. We don’t go anywhere now unless we have to. We went to the grocery store at 7AM! Just so we could get the food home when it’s still 87! Ugh! Went to a event Sat at the base at 11AM and 2 hrs later we came out of the mess hall and got into our truck and this is what we were greeted with at 1PM:

We finally got home and turned on the local weather channel and that made it worse:

It’snot a great pic but it shows next Sat at 108 degrees! It’s just so wild to see this heat goes on and on. 108 degrees? OMG! Time for me to become a snow bird and head to cooler weather.

And the Heat Continues …

Just watching the weather on the local news and the weatherman is saying this 100+ degree heat will continue at least for another 10 days! Wow! This is so wild! My husband was just saying – it’s like we need a hurricane. OMG! Did he say that? I guess he’s kind of right. The hurricanes or tropical storms are what brings the moisture into Oklahoma. I’ve never seen anything like this continued heat! Whew!

We are still able to water so we are taking advantage of that in trying to keep the plants and trees alive but I don’t know for how long. The cherry tree looks bad now. The maple is losing leaves and the azaleas I think are gone. I’m so tired of this heat! Wishing for the cool fall weather! Sigh!

It’s Official! 106 Degrees Today!

Wow! Never thought I would see this in Tulsa. Yeah, I know Tulsa gets hot but dang folks – 106? Even the wind is just stifling! My poor plants have had it and I’ve given up trying. I water every day but it’s just not enough with this hot sun burning down on them all day. Poor things!

And my poor girls (2 Blue Merle Shelties) are heistant to even go out. They go to the door, look back at me as if saying “But mama, it’s HOT!”. All that long hair – must make them miserable in this heat. Luckily I work from home so they get to stay pampered and cool inside. They are such sweet girls!

My hubby has been on vacation since July 5th and even he’s grumbling that it’s too hot to even do anything. So he’s been a couch potato and hates it. He is so bored! He normally works in the garage on something but not this past week. Way too hot!

Ah, well this will pass, right? Gee, just wish it would hurry up! I am so ready for fall and New England!

Happy Birthday America!

Coming from a military family and marrying a military man has made me very aware of the patriotism around me. My dad was career Air Force and retired with 20 yrs in. He loved it so much he went back into civil service for another 10 yrs. He still missed it, so he decided to work for the commissary as a box boy until he couldn’t work anymore from emphysema. My mom was the ideal military wife who stayed home and kept the house and us kids in shape.

Growing up with the military gave me the standards which I live my life. I protect the flag, which is flying from our house today and I support my retired military husband who gave 4 years to the Marines and then 20 years to the Air National Guard. We believe in keeping our shores safe and decided 10 years ago to help set up the Tulsa Air National Guard Retiree Assoc. We are both on the board of directors and absolutely love talking to all the veterans and hearing their great stories.

So Happy Birthday America on this July 4th 2011! I salute all the veterans of all the wars!